Britain's top talent, supreme international skill and a rising star. It's all here in HOAX.

The HOAX graphic novel is companion and sequel to the HOAX musical stage performance, which together tell the story of a young man suffering from schizophrenia, both pre and post diagnosis. The young man's name is Rob.

The project is inspired by my younger brother, with the content of both the graphic novel and the musical stage performance being around fifty per cent fiction and fifty per cent fact.

My brother used to write poetry. Often we'd work on poems together. The musical HOAX My Lonely Heart is based on one of these poems, and the graphic novel HOAX Pscychosis Blues on a whole series of them - each one illustrated by a different artist to reflect the varying states of mind that Rob encounters.

When I first started shaping HOAX Pscychosis Blues in my head, I had a pretty good idea of the many artists that I wanted to illustrate it. As the project framework developed, and the resources available to us became clear, I settled on ten of these talents, and am thrilled that all ten are now confirmed.

What's more, we can add to the list Paula Knight. Paula's a brilliant artist in her own right, but she's also a professional proofreader and will be the ultimate eagle eyes on this project.

For my part, the graphic novel scriptwriting process has begun and, although it is quite heartbreaking reading over the original poems again, for the first time since my brother's suicide five years ago, I feel the narrative that will come out of this process will be very strong indeed.

And so to the first face-to-face HOAX meeting of the year - the one where Director Benji sits me down with the first draft of my musical in his hands, and proceeds to tell me his thoughts on it.

Benji is brutally frank. He tries to soften this with a gentle voice, and sometimes a pause as he sympathetically angles his head, but it doesn't change the fact. Fortunately I like this approach, especially towards collaboration. It makes things clearer, easier and wastes less time if everybody knows just where they stand. So I was perfectly ready to take on Benji's thoughts.

As it happens, though, we were on the same page from the start. And it was a brilliant meeting, leaving the both of us buzzing and wholly unable to sleep. There are changes to be made to the script of course, but these will only improve the strength and vision of this unique theatre piece.

Those are the lines I've been thinking along over the past weeks as Producer Pippa Frith, Prof Matt Green and I have been pulling together the Arts Council England funding application that will allow us to complete Stage 1 of the HOAX project.

Applications in themselves aren't necessarily painful, but I was responsible for the 'artistic heart' of this one, which meant examining all of those feelings to do with my younger brother and condensing them into a polished, succinct and professional language.

It was emotionally hard, I admit, but the application is stronger for it. And if it means this story 'comes to consciousness' then it will have been worth it.

The application's now been submitted. We're thinking positive and planning for success - but a few extra crossed fingers wouldn't go amiss.

Full steam ahead this month, as we ready our first-stage funding application for the HOAX project – funding that will allow us to go ahead with the musical stage performance planning and commission the ten graphic novel illustrators. Covering each of the cross-media strands, the academic research stands, and how they all complement one another, it's quite a job to boil that down to a few concise pages. Luckily we have Producer Pippa Frith for that, who's been masterfully massaging us for information over Christmas and New Year whilst, at the same time, making it feel like we were all getting time off. The result is that we're rested, refreshed, recharged - and absolutely on track.

‘Who?’ you ask. Well, the tenth and final illustrator is not yet quite so lauded. It was very important to me with HOAX that the project supported an emerging artist. I've found this kind of support really does make a difference, on so many levels, when you're struggling to break through. As such it gives me great pleasure to have as our HOAX newcomer Northampton’s finest, Rozi Hathaway. A few words on this from Rozi herself: “So, where do I even start? I'm in some sort of comatose state of disbelief mixed with skipping around in excitement from the revelations over the past few days. I am incredibly honoured and very excited to have been asked to collaborate on a project entitled 'HOAX', by Ravi Thorton, as part of the team working on the graphic novel side of things. Words cannot express how excited I am to be doing this project, and although I'm a little nervous about working with such high up names in the British (and international!) comics industry, I can't wait to get started. Until then, you can find me happy-clapping and spontaneously dancing. And of course, drawing.”

Thanks are due yet again to friend Rich James Johnson, who previously connected me with Leonardo M. Giron for the graphic short story DAY RELEASE. Leonardo, aka Glen, is an absolutely superb Manila-based artist, and an utter joy to work with. It gives me a hugely warm sense of reassurance to know that he’s on board.

Glen's involvement brings the HOAX graphic novel illustrator team to a total of nine.

The Nottingham connection to HOAX continues to grow with the addition of astonishing digital artist and illustrator Ian Jones.

Thanks are due to friend of mine Rich James Johnson for the introduction. Ian is one of Rich's former students, and Rich mentioned him in relation to yet another story project I was chatting to him about (CIRCUS). I got to know Ian and his work a little better around that time and, when recently working on the HOAX Psychosis Blues script, thought of him again.

I'm delighted that Ian has agreed to come on board with HOAX. I find his work hugely exciting and quite mesmerising, and I feel he'll do the particular section of the graphic novel that I've earmarked for him a great deal of justice.

It's actually a very endearing section, and endearing may not be the first word that springs to mind when you view Ian's portfolio - but here again the match becomes something you feel intuitively, knowing that certain words can speak very deeply to certain people.

My brother, Rob, wrote hundreds of poems during the years of his illness, and often imagined that they would one day be published as a complete anthology. Psychosis Blues is the title he was planning to use.